If the world is single-minded and focuses purely on combating one pandemic, forgetting others, the effects of other morbidity and mortality on healthcare systems will be seen for a long time to come.
The giant leap in the number of people accessing HIV treatment would not have been possible without task shifting from medical doctors to less-specialised cadres such as nurses and midwives.
One of the main challenges remains that diagnostics and drugs for people suffering from advanced HIV aren’t readily available. This group of people is vulnerable to deadly opportunistic infections.
Pooled testing, or group testing, has been used to diagnose relatively rare conditions, such as infection in blood donors. It could be used for universal early infant diagnosis and viral load testing.
Nesri Padayatchi, Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and Kogie Naidoo, Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)
The redirection of resources to COVID-19 has enormous consequences for the provision of healthcare services for other diseases, in particular, HIV programmes.
In Eswatini, Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho more than 1 in 5 children are HIV-exposed but uninfected. A coordinated strategy is needed to ensure all children reach their developmental potential.
South Africa has set ambitious targets to eliminate mother to child transmission of HIV completely. It will require innovative strategies and continuous quality improvement to achieve them.
Babies born with the HIV virus in their blood are at a turning point in the infection. With immediate treatment these children can develop much stronger immune systems to fight the virus.
Many of the most fundamental aspects of TB disease remain unknown. For example, after exposure to the organism that causes TB, why do only some people get infected and only some of those fall ill?
Rapid population ageing has prompted researchers to study disease trends in older South Africans. The aim is to understand the role that specific health conditions play in ageing among rural people.
Research done over the past 26 years
provides insights into changes across people’s lives, helps evaluate interventions, and provides information for local, provincial and national planning.
Research shows that many people living with HIV struggle with tooth decay, bleeding gums and tooth sensitivity – due to the costs of dental care and discrimination by dental professionals.
Professor of medicine and deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town